Glanders

“ Farcy was, in olden times, thought to be a different disease from glanders, and was believed by many to be curable, while glanders has always been generally believed to be incurable, but it is now known that farcy is simply one manifestation of glanders. ”

“ To-day in New York City glanders is extensively prevalent, but large horse owners dare not adopt the legal measures for its extinction, with the certainty of great loss or ruin staring them in the face as the result. ”

“ Though the sportsman with gun and spaniels and the huntsman with horse and hounds are frequently heard in the thickets, they never visit the “bottom,” unless the partridges fly down from the stubble, or the hare, pursued by the beagles, takes a straight line from the far side of the glen to a sheep-path leading up the gorge. And in summer, except when the fisherman wanders by the brook, and the haymakers are busy in the grass, the glen is an undisturbed sanctuary, given over to Nature's wildlings, where, in safety, as far as man is concerned, they tend their hidden young. ”

“ And yet the changes which many of them undergo in their early state to that of their maturity, are as different as one animal can be from another. As those of the gnat, which passes his early state in water, and then stretching out his new wings and expanding his new lungs, rises in the air; as of the caterpillar and bee-nymph, which feed on vegetable leaves or farina, and at length bursting from their self-formed graves, become beautiful winged inhabitants of the skies, journeying from flower to flower, and nourished by the ambrosial food of honey. ”

“ Is the gorilla afraid of the python?"
"Between the ape and the serpent there is always war. See where you place your foot then, for you travel the monkey-path, and we go hand and foot like monkeys. Look well where you place your hand, for a straight branch may be the body of the silent hunter."
Venning went on with renewed caution, studying the branches above and below, for, lover as he was of all manner of live things, he had the common repugnance to the serpent-kind. ”

“ There the dogs would soon devour him,
Birds of prey would feast upon him;
Have not hidden him in Swamp-land,
Have not buried him in heather;
There the worms would live upon him,
Insects feed upon his body. ”

“ Horses and cattle, sheep, and goats and pigs resemble one another in many respects besides their hoofs, and they form one natural order; the well-developed gnawing teeth of rats and rabbits and squirrels place these forms together in the order rodentia; the structures adapting their possessors for a flesh-eating and predatory life unite the tribes of the lion, wolf, bear, and seal, in the order carnivora. ”

“ Now, in all other animal structures which have a spiral growth and are paired—one belonging to the right side of the animal, the other to the left, as, for instance, the spirally marked horns of antelopes and the more loosely coiled horns of sheep and cattle—one of the pair forms a right-handed and the other a left-handed spiral. ”

“ What yer got ter do is to set Nature ag’in Nature. The wild buck can look after hisself; teach the tame goat and the sheep to do the same.”
“The laws of Nature, Abe, have covered your lands with weeds.”
“Yes; and reduced his mangy live stock to one goat,” added Si.
“Laugh! yer yeller-eyed, big-footed, long-legged, two-headed, freckled-faced duffers—laugh!—but I bet you that ole goat’ll knock the stuffin’ out of your club, and purtect hisself ag’in any wild crittur, from a stink-cat to a tiger.” ”

“ Birds of every hue, gems of the air, glittered in our pathway; a vast number of the cormorant species were busy in gobbling up frogs, toads, and snakes; the eagle and the vulture, too, were soaring over our heads, looking out for the prey these regions afford them in such abundance. Every step we took frightened up flocks of the smaller feathered tribe, and brought to view myriads of other living things, such as slugs, snails, and insects of every variety. ”

“ The painted wings of the insect in its second stage of existence are the sublimated cabbage it has devoured in its condition of larva.”
“Quite so. What has that to do with me?”
“We are also in our larva condition. But do not for a moment suppose that the wings we shall put on with rainbow painting are the produce of what we eat here—of ham and chicken, kidneys, beef, and the like. No, sir, certainly not. They are fashioned out of the information we have absorbed, the knowledge we have acquired during the first stage of life.” ”

“ In all these operations, the main object should be to make every thing bend to the most rapid production of brood; give me the bees, and I can easily show how they may be fed, so as to make strong and prosperous stocks; whereas if the bees are wanting, every thing else will be in vain: just as a land where there are many stout hands and courageous hearts, although comparatively barren, will in due time, be made to "bud and blossom as the rose," while a second Eden, if inhabited by a scanty and discouraged population, must speedily be overgrown with briars and thorns. ”

“ But large numbers of Ungulates—deer, cattle, antelopes, goats, wild boars—sleep in different places each recurrent night, and to this is probably due the fact that, with the exception of two rare species—one taken in Northern China and the other in Transcaucasia—the Ungulates have furnished descriptive [37] science with no fleas at all. ”

“ Should you be setting up a large group, such as a tiger tearing open a deer, or a vulture at a sheep, you may represent the liver and other organs in modelling clay or plaster, dried, waxed, and coloured, or by coloured wax alone if the part to be modelled is not large. ”

“ The infinitely varied and capricious pursuit of a prey which is ever fluttering—of the gnat, the fly, the beetle, the thousand insects that waver to and fro and never keep in the same direction—is, undoubtedly, the best training school for flight, and renders the swallow superior to all other birds. ”

“ The gnats dance in joyous swarms which the slightest breath of wind disperses like a column of smoke; butterflies and moths, in wedding-garments, their wings powdered with silvery dust and their antennæ spread out like plumes, join in the frolic or seek places in which to deposit their eggs; the wood-borer comes forth from its hidden retreat under the bark of the elm; the weevil breaks its cell hollowed out in a grain of wheat; the plume-moths rise in clouds from the granaries and fly toward the fields of ripe cereals ”

“ Henceforward you will understand better the name of the 'rapacious order' or 'birds of prey,' which is given by naturalists to vultures, eagles, falcons, and owls. You are aware that the science which describes the habits of birds is called ornithology. Cuvier, the great classifier, divides the feathered tribe into six orders—birds of prey, passerines, climbers, gallinaceans, wading, and web-footed birds. In order to prevent confusion, the orders have been subdivided into families, the families into groups, the groups into genera, and the genera into species. ”

“ The serpent at the foot of Earth's Answer is almost an additional sentence to the song, so clearly does it show the source of all bondage. In the "Clod and the Pebble," the symbolic sheep and cattle that tread the clod are easy to understand. The frogs, worm, and duck drawn below, are elementary inhabitants of the watery world. ”

“ Now may we not say with confidence, that the sounding-winged insect looks back to the pupa, the pupa to the larva, the larva to the egg-boat? And more, that the form of the boat,—a form so essential that it could not have lived without it,—looked back to the crossed feet of the mother-gnat, the impress of whose angle its extremities sustained?
Of course we might reason thus: but yet we should be at fault; for the ringing swarm of merry Gnats has been this very evening created. ”

“ We now come to a very important group of mammals called ungulates, or hoofed animals, because of the way in which their feet are formed. The oxen, sheep, goats, antelopes, deer, horses, swine, elephants, and rhinoceroses all belong to this order. ”

“ The animal which some persons call the glanus and others the hyæna, is not less than the wolf, it has a mane like a horse, but the hair all along its spine is more harsh and thick. It also secretly attacks men, and hunts them [Pg 205] down; it hunts dogs also by vomiting like men ”

“ Beasts of prey have acquired strong jaws or talons. Cattle have acquired a rough tongue and a rough palate to pull off the blades of grass, as cows and sheep. Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. ”

“ For example, there is no doubt that both birds and mammals are descended from some fish-like animal that lived in the water and breathed by gills borne on slits in the gullet, and every bird and mammal passes through a stage in which these gill-slits are present, though their function is lost, and they soon close up and disappear. ”

“ Nevertheless, in conditions brought about by man—that is to say, confinement in cages or paddocks, or at any rate removal from their native climate and home—all the groups of species just cited commonly and frequently produce hybrids inter se, that is, one or more species of the horse group thus inter-breed with one another, so will certain species of cats, certain species of bears, many species of pheasants, also of ducks, of geese, and of grouse. ”

“ But what, in the mean time, is the condition of the hives from which we are taking so many brood combs for the proper development of our nuclei; are they not weakened so much as to become quite enfeebled? I come now to the very turning point of the whole nucleus system. If due judgment has not been used, and the sanguine bee-keeper has endeavored to multiply his colonies too rapidly, a most grievous disappointment awaits him. ”

“ The common dog-rose of England is furnished with glands on the stipules, and in other species they are more numerous, until in the wild rose of the northern counties the leaves are thickly edged, and the fruit and sepals covered with stalked glands. I have only observed the wild roses in the north of England, but there I have never seen insects attending the glands. These glands, however, do not secrete honey; but a dark, resinous, sticky liquid, that probably is useful by being distasteful to both insects and mammals. ”

“ I had not advanced more than two hundred yards when I felt oppressed by a most sickening stench, and saw the trees swarming with birds of prey, buzzards perched upon their branches, ravens sailing amongst their boughs, and clouds of carrion crows flitting about, and poising themselves in the air in a stationary position, after the manner of that most nauseous of all birds, when it perceives, or thinks it perceives, some object of prey. ”

“ Muata put the question aside. He rose and pointed to the east.
"The sun dies away and the hunters return."
"I don't hear them. Where are they?" "The birds cry out and fly. That is the sign that man is on the move; for hear, you who split up the shining boat, birds will scold at a leopard or a great snake, hovering around as they scold; but they fly from man. ”

“ One of Herbert Spencer's questions was, Why do animals and birds of prey have their eyes in front, and others, as sheep and domestic fowl, on the side of the head? Man, then, by the position of his eyes belongs to the predaceous animals. ”

“ Accordingly, we find that no structure exhibits such strange variations as the skin. Besides the regular modifications which we see in the scales or horny plates of fishes, the smooth coats or solid shells of reptiles, the feathers of birds, and the hair of mammals, numerous other minor peculiarities occur in almost every species. Such are the horns of cows and goats, the spike of the rhinoceros, the beaks, nails, claws, hoofs, and talons of beasts or birds, and the tail-plumes, ruffs, lappets, crests, and ornamental adjuncts of all the more aesthetic animals. ”

“ The defence of the colony against enemies, the construction of the cells, the storing of them with honey and bee-bread, the rearing of the young, in short, the whole work of the hive, the laying of eggs excepted, is carried on by the industrious little workers.
There may be gentlemen of leisure in the commonwealth of bees, but most assuredly there are no such ladies, whether of high or low degree. ”

“ In the breeding-season it is found chiefly in the glens, in the retired depths of which it constructs its nest; it never, like the Thrushes and Geocichlae, builds in trees or bushes, but selects some high, towering, and almost inacessible rock, forming the side of a deep glen, on the projecting ledges of which, or in the holes from which small boulders have fallen, it constructs its nest, and where, unless when assailed by man, it rears its young in safety, secure alike from the howling blast and the attack of wild animals. ”

“ Many of the young men were merely dressed—if “dressed” it could be called—in the skins of leopards, panthers, bears, goats, and deer, tossed over their shoulders. In their hands they all held wet, dripping branches of fragrant trees, many of them tipped with pine cones, and wreathed with tendrils of the vine. Others carried switches, of which I divined the use only too clearly, and the women were waving over their heads tame serpents, which writhed and wriggled hideously. It was an awful spectacle! ”

“ It may be that he would show more distinctly on one colour than on another, and so fall an easy victim to an insect-eating bird. But it may be that the leaves of some plant of a particular hue, or the juices of the plant, are distasteful to the insect. ”

“ Now the swift, which visits us only in summer to build his nest, when insects are plentiful, and spends the rest of his time in Africa, is a type of a whole army of birds, lovely, bright, and gay, with short weak feet, long wings, and a gaping mouth surrounded by bristly hairs, which swarm in hot countries where insects are to be found all the year round. ”